1507
First impressions prove to be quite misleading in the case of handsome, disagreeable Mr Darcy.
The Bennet family’s near-neighbours, Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy, make an appearance at their first dance in Meryton, and public opinion upon them and their London relatives swings bewilderingly to and fro.
Posted November 3 2015
1508
Scotland’s association with the brother of Peter is down to an early 8th century Bishop of Hexham.
St Andrew the Apostle came to be the Patron Saint of Scotland through an early 8th century Bishop of Hexham. His feast day is the 30th of November, and he is patron also of Romania and Russia.
Posted March 13 2015
1510
Ralph Neville spoiled David of Scotland’s alliance with France in the Hundred Years’ War
King David II of Scotland tried to help his ally France in the Hundred Years’ War, by knocking boldly on England’s back door. But after he stumbled across Ralph Neville’s defence force in a mist, things went from bad to worse.
Posted March 13 2015
1511
As the Persian Empire’s grip tightened by land and sea, it fell to one man to unite Greece in a last desperate bid to break it.
The Battle of Salamis in September 480 BC was the turning point in the Greco-Persian Wars. By comparison with the small city-states of Greece, Xerxes’s highly centralised Persian empire was clumsy and backward, and the Greeks were ready to defend their superior civilisation to the death.
Posted March 13 2015
1512
Following an appalling atrocity in fourth-century Thessalonica, two strong and determined men refused to back down.
Theodosius I ruled the Roman Empire from 379 to 395. He was the first to adopt Christianity as the State religion, and an Orthodox believer who rejected Arianism, a heresy that Bede described as a ‘high-road of pestilence’ for every other. But Theodosius was also an absolute ruler, whose word was law, and to be a Bishop in his Imperial Church demanded a great deal of courage.
Posted March 13 2015